Say What?

The nurses and nursing assistants (CNAs) here are so sweet. One of the CNAs who particularly dotes on Graham came up to me at the end of her shift to say that she would have two days off. And then she said, "If something happens to your husband while I'm gone, I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed knowing him. He's such a good man. Please give him a kiss for me. "

Well of course on the one hand, I was very touched. I hugged her and thanked her. But ON THE OTHER HAND, say what? She thinks Graham might die in the next two days??? The staff here do see a lot of death, and likely know what signs to look for, so needless to say, I was very spooked.

Since Graham has been going through so much this past week, I've asked both the Manor Care doctor and our usual oncologist if Graham might be close to the end. The Manor Care doctor was more pessimistic. She felt that the swelling (lymphedema, ascites), lack of appetite, and the beginning of some wheezing did indicate that he's approaching the end. BUT, since he's forcing himself to eat, she said that he is staving off death, and that death wasn't expected immediately. But if he stopped eating, he would likely go into kidney failure within a few days and die a painless death. She said that the lack of appetite was the body's way of bringing on a pain-free death, because kidney failure releases some chemical or something that acts as a natural pain-killer. The patient gets very sleepy, until he eventually is sleeping all day, and just gently and gradually passes away.

Our regular oncologist was more blase, said the test results were not that alarming, that Graham has actually been worse before, and that she's still expecting him to come to Stanford on Wednesday for his PET-CT scan, doctor's appointment and chemo. Phew! I'll take that opinion, thank you.

Graham woke up today with a high fever of 102.6, felt pretty bad, and asked for pain meds. We gave him a heavier dose than usual, along with regular doses of Tylenol, and he slept almost the whole day. His fever is down to 100.6. He woke up around dinnertime, ate a pretty good amount, and then went right back to sleep. He's snoozing away as I type.

The blood and urine tests done recently didn't indicate any infections, so the fever is likely "tumor fever," which happens when someone has a heavy tumor burden. Graham has had tumor fever off and on before. It waxes and wanes, based on how effective a particular treatment was. But, since the cancer has always come back, the tumors regrow, and then the fevers and chills return.

Is it really only 10 days to Christmas and 6 days until Hanukkah?? Where did Autumn go to?